Joe Biden already has the record for most jail sentences commuted in a single day. Is he now aiming for the record number of pardons?
The elder Biden has granted a blanket 10-year pardon for his son Hunter (yes, presidents have the constitutional authority to pardon someone for a crime they have not yet been charged with).
Former federal prosecutor Katie Cherkasky, in an interview with Fox News, said that the 10-year time frame of Hunter Biden's pardon suggests that Old Joe is not only protecting his son but possibly himself and other members of the so-called Biden Crime Family over potential prosecution.
So, will Joe Biden sometime in the last 35 days of his term pardon himself or other of his kinfolk?
That, Cherkasky said, is "something that has never been affirmatively adjudicated. But I guess we'll see if Joe Biden tries to issue a pardon for himself before he leaves office altogether, and then we'll really know what this is about."
Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during the Obama administration, said the Constitution is "silent" regarding presidential self-pardoning, and whether it would be allowed has never been tested in the courts.
"I would be surprised to see Joe Biden pardon himself when he has been charged with no crimes," McQuade told Newsweek. "But if he were concerned about protecting himself from a baseless prosecution and decided to pardon himself, it is unclear whether such a pardon could stick."
In August 1974, during the Watergate scandal, then Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary C. Lawton concluded that presidents cannot pardon themselves in a decision written for the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel.
"Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself," Lawton wrote in a memo.
The ruling was made before President Richard Nixon resigned from office and was eventually pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.
"The language of the Constitution is silent on self-pardons, but the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel has opined that it implicitly rejects the concept on the grounds that a person cannot be a judge in his own case," McQuade told Newsweek.
"That opinion is binding on the Justice Department, and so federal prosecutors could disregard a self-pardon and charge Biden anyway. The only way to test it would be to grant the pardon and then, if charged with a federal crime, assert the pardon as a defense. That would tee up the question for the courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, to decide the matter."
Commuted sentence of 'Kids-for-Cash' judge
Meanwhile, Biden was slammed for commuting the sentence of a former Pennsylvania judge convicted of funneling juveniles to for-profit detention facilities in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks, the New York Post reported on Dec. 12.
Former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan, the jurist at the center of the so-called “Kids-for-Cash” scandal, who was sentenced to 17½ years in prison in 2011.
At the time of Conahan’s sentencing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania described the judicial scandal as “the worst in Pennsylvania’s history.”
More than 2,500 children between 2003 and 2008 were potentially given disproportionate sentences by Conahan and Ciavarella in order to populate the private detention centers paying them the kickbacks, investigators believe. Thousands of juvenile sentences were vacated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the wake of the scandal.
Timely: Defund Fake News
Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide after he was locked up as part of the scheme orchestrated by Conahan and former judge Mark Ciavarella, said in a statement: “I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power. This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2024
Here is my annotation to the @joeroganhq ep going over, with receipts on screen, the "Red Lines" memo sent to Zelensky his first month in office by the US State Dept's cut-out network telling the new government every policy it couldn't do
(from last night's X subscriber stream) pic.twitter.com/1XQiCfThFN — Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 11, 2024
The American Free Press is Back!
Free Press International
[Publish This Content]
